'Eye of the Beholder' from Batman Annual #14 is probably the most important modern Two-Face story ever written. This was the issue that fleshed out Harvey Dent's origins and redefined his characterization as someone who was already struggling with his psyche before the acid hit. A lot of the material here was later used in 'The Long Halloween', the animated series as well as The Dark Knight.

Unfortunately this has yet to be reprinted by DC, either in trade or in digital format. I imagine the latter will happen sooner or later (Comixology is constantly adding old comics to the archive) but DC's treatment of this has always puzzled me.

'One of the complaints the Byrne Bashers like to dust off from time to time is that I have a "fetish" about young girls crushing on older men. In a forty five year career, this is something I have done a grand total of four times with Mac and Heather Hudson, Lana and Superman in GENERATIONS, Rita Farr and Cliff Steele, and Reed and Sue Richards. And that last one was set in place by Stan and Jack. As fetishes go, not much to write home about.' - John Byrne

There’s a thing readers should understand with this book: we’re not doing business in the normal way. There will be no tie-ins until we get back to Earth. We’re self-contained, telling our own story, beholden to nobody, and we’re on a trip out to the far reaches of Marvel Space, and we’re going to come back changed, and carrying something very special with us. -- Al Ewing

Continuing Harvey Dent's 75th anniversary is Matt Wagner's 'Faces' from Legends of the Dark Knight #28-30. It's considered by a lot of people to be one of the definitive Two-Face stories. I'm personally on the fence; it's well-written and drawn but Harvey's character and overall motivations are fairly inconsistent with how he's usually depicted. The story might have been served better with a number of other Bat-villains instead. But who knows, you might think differently.

If it looked a bit like a high school cheerleader's outfit (back in the day when cheerleader outfits didn't show much skin and weren't all that tight fitting), that was probably intentional. And this suited her just fine all through high school and most of the way though college. And then, 12 years later, her editors belatedly realized the 60's had brought a sea change in fashion, and things started to get weird. ( Sartorial madness ensued )

And that is the long and sad story of Kara's closet of super outfits. Maybe someone sensible came along and rescued her from further sartorial shame by stealing all but the hotpants ensemble?

In some cases sadly, in other cases thankfully, we never got to see her wearing some of the other outfits in that closet, but evidence of their existence was preserved:( Read more... )